This was a difficult book to read in an emotional context and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. The writing isn’t the problem, it’s just that it touches upon some really difficult subjects and as a mother I felt as if I kept putting myself in the shoes of each of these women wondering what I’d do in their shoes.

Living in the States where surrogacy is such a common practice, widely accepted across most of the country and there are very few issues I at first had some trouble understanding the foundation of the issues the characters faced. Barker does a good job of guiding her readers through this topic so you can understand the challenges faced, why and how even when you think the ink is dry on the contract and you can breathe that may not be the case.

I found myself hurting so much for Zoe at times but also being really irritated with her because she comes off very selfish and single minded in that she seems willing to destroy her marriage to have a child. Even after she finally gets that dream she continues to act in a manner only thinking of herself. Her husband begins spiraling out of control, he’s obviously having severe psychological issues but she doesn’t do anything or tell anyone what’s happening until it’s too late. It feels like she continues in that vein with her child and only finally gets help for her when her own job/life gets put into a bind. I had a lot of trouble liking this character.

Then you have Zoe’s sister Nadia who was the biological surrogate. The author set up there would be a conflict right away because it was made known that Nadia wanted more children and to stay at home so it seemed naïve to think she’d be able to hand over her biological daughter to her sister without issue. I know it seemed like Nadia was kind of being set up to be the ‘villain’ in this story but I ended up liking her more and would have ended the story differently just because of how much I preferred Nadia over Zoe.

This would be an excellent book to read in a book club to talk about the issues of motherhood, pregnancy, thoughts on surrogacy, etc. I’d be particularly curious to get a man’s point of view. ( )